Striving for Social Justice Through Language and Literacy
In 2022, the family of Matthew Briggs (’12MEd) established the Matthew Briggs Scholarship Fund Endowment. Their gift honors the late educator’s wishes to establish a memorial fund that 1) serves marginalized youth and 2) lovingly challenges privileged youth to consider how they may more equitably share their power.
Every educator at the start of the academic year is faced with the challenge of building a relationship with the parents and caregivers that shape each student’s life. With limited time and resources, an open house and parent-teacher conferences are often the only ways educators and student guardians connect, the latter often focusing on ways to address a student’s needs and challenges.
For English teacher, Matthew Briggs (’12MEd), a five-minute phone call was one way to expand the foundational connection with the parents and guardians who shape his students’ lives, to engage with them in a generative way not restricted to addressing students’ obstacles but expansive to allow for an appreciation of a student’s gifts. While he would have liked more time to relate with the parents and guardians of his students, he believed that at minimum a five-minute phone call had the potential to help set a collaborative tone for the academic year.
“I was continually surprised,” Briggs wrote in an August 2020 blog, “by what I learned about a student from a casual five-minute conversation with a family member delighted to be receiving a positive phone call.”
“The calls were a dedicated practice for him at the beginning of each academic year,” says Victoria Szydlowski ’11, Briggs’ spouse. “In social justice, Matthew was serious about the loving part of loving accountability. How do you build that foundation of love and respect?”
For many students and families who have experienced a lifetime of microaggression and bias incidents in education, a simple, direct action born from love is a lifeline. And Briggs would use those few moments to establish that connective tissue between home and school life, always centered around unconditional positive regard for the student.
Love. Respect. Justice. These concepts were foundational to Briggs’s life. They also grounded his teaching philosophy. When Briggs passed away on August 25, 2021, from a rare, incurable, and aggressive form of cancer known as desmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT), his family established a scholarship fund for Master of Education students at UMass Amherst to memorialize his wishes to: 1) serve marginalized youth and 2) lovingly challenge privileged youth to consider how they may more equitably share their power. As a graduate of the 180 Days in Springfield M.Ed. program, Briggs was committed to improving issues in urban education, especially those related to social justice, identity, and language. As such, his namesake fund prioritizes supporting students in the social justice education and language, literacy, and culture programs, especially those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged.
“While I know Matthew has natural gifts for critically thinking about and working towards improving social justice through teaching English literature, I know how much these gifts were cultivated by his Master of Education at UMass. Knowing that the money in this scholarship will go toward cultivating that same attention, curiosity, and effort toward addressing social justice issues for future Master of Education students is incredible.” —Victoria Szydlowski
According to Briggs’s spouse, Victoria Szydlowski, who witnessed firsthand his experience at UMass Amherst, the College of Education had a “transformational” effect on Briggs’s growth as an educator. His coursework and student teaching, she said, acted like a catalyst, one that inspired Matthew to position the English classroom as a space for questioning systemic inequities.
“Matthew is gifted at discussing and writing about literature,” Szydlowski recalled, alluding to a course on Toni Morrison and William Faulkner that she and Briggs took at Hampshire College while undergraduates at UMass. “It’s one reason why he was so good with students. His ability to close read and zoom out was incredible.”
The English language itself was a “delight” for Briggs, Szydlowski added, noting that he was initially drawn to teaching English out of an interest in teaching the technical skills of literary criticism and textual analysis. In 2015, after getting married, the pair joined the Peace Corps in Uganda, where they spent two years teaching English. Matthew specifically served as a Teacher Trainer at a Ndegeya Core Primary Teacher’s College, where he taught students training to be primary school teachers. The experience was “challenging,” Szydlowski said, because they observed many tensions embedded within international development work, tensions that often-revealed power dynamics connected to the English language itself.
Even when Briggs’s experience with cancer prevented him from returning to the classroom at Islander Middle School in Mercer Island, Wash., at the beginning of the 2020 school year, he prepared a list of teaching thoughts, which included his observation about the power of communicating with students’ families.
“Call every student’s family to share a genuine, positive comment that the student has earned through a good deed, contributing to the classroom environment,” Briggs wrote. “For some or even many families, it will be the first time they’ve had a teacher share positive feedback on their child, and that goes a long way.”
The Matthew Briggs Scholarship Fund Endowment honors this sentiment—the idea that educators can address longstanding inequities, oppression, and liberation through English language and literacy education. For Briggs’s family, the knowledge that they are supporting future educators who share this vision is invaluable.
“It felt great to donate money towards Matthew’s scholarship,” says Szydlowski. “I remember when Matthew was a graduate student, and I know that even a small sum was meaningful. I feel confident knowing that the UMass College of Education will be a great place to award yearly scholarships in perpetuity to Master of Education students working to address social justice issues through teaching language, literacy, and culture.”
“Matt’s ability to think critically about experiences he was actively engaging in is one of his gifts,” Szdlowski recalled. “Often, people equate criticism with negativity. But with Matthew, criticism is a deep and loving lens. It’s textual. It’s relational.”
Matthew funneled all his teaching experiences into his passion for witnessing and guiding youth through the socioemotional hurdles of adolescence. As described in his eulogy:
“He became an English teacher because he thought he was getting away with something to be paid to discuss great books and plays and poetry with young people.
But it was the people part of that sentiment that was Matt’s true muse. He loved people. [...] He loved being in community with young people, most of all.”
Even when Briggs’s experience with cancer prevented him from returning to the classroom at Islander Middle School in Mercer Island, Wash., at the beginning of the 2020 school year, he prepared a list of teaching thoughts, which included his observation about the power of communicating with students’ families.
“Call every student’s family to share a genuine, positive comment that the student has earned through a good deed, contributing to the classroom environment,” Briggs wrote. “For some or even many families, it will be the first time they’ve had a teacher share positive feedback on their child, and that goes a long way.”
The Matthew Briggs Scholarship Fund Endowment honors this sentiment—the idea that educators can address longstanding inequities, oppression, and liberation through English language and literacy education. For Briggs’s family, the knowledge that they are supporting future educators who share this vision is invaluable.
“It felt great to donate money towards Matthew’s scholarship,” says Szydlowski. “I remember when Matthew was a graduate student, and I know that even a small sum was meaningful. I feel confident knowing that the UMass College of Education will be a great place to award yearly scholarships in perpetuity to Master of Education students working to address social justice issues through teaching language, literacy, and culture.”